In She Who Lies Above, Beatriz Hausner transforms the figure of Hypatia of Alexandria —philosopher, mathematician, and martyr of knowledge— into the axis of a poetic meditation on wisdom, desire, and transformation. Blending poetry, prose, essay, and myth, Hausner creates a dialogue among three women: Hypatia, the poet and archivist Bettina Ungaro, and the author herself, who weave an imaginary epistolary exchange with Hypatia’s student and lover, Synesius of Cyrene. The book explores alchemy as a metaphor for language, the library as a living body of humanity, and poetry as a form of resistance against oblivion. In times of cultural destruction and imposed silence, Hausner reminds us that without books, without bodies, without memory, “nothing lives.” A dazzling and erudite work that celebrates the persistence of knowledge and the transformative power of the word.
Beatriz Hausner (Santiago de Chile, 1958) poeta, traductora literaria y editora chileno-canadiense, reconocida por su extensa labor en la promoción de la literatura canadiense y por su contribución a la difusión del surrealismo hispanoamericano en lengua inglesa. Radicada en Toronto desde 1971, ha desarrollado una destacada trayectoria como autora y mediadora cultural. Entre sus poemarios más conocidos se encuentran Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart, Enter the Raccoon, Sew Him Up y The Wardrobe Mistress. Su obra ha sido traducida al francés, ...
In She Who Lies Above, Beatriz Hausner brings Hypatia of Alexandria, the fourth-century Byzantine mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher, to life. She does so through layered ventriloquism: publishing amorous correspondence from the feminist icon’s friend and former student, Synesius of Cyrene, and scribing Hypatia’s replies in turn. These letters are “discovered” by Bettina Ungaro, a librarian and archivist by day and poet by night. She, in turn, collates the correspondence to build a vision of the couple’s relationship while writing a kind of ...
